This invention addresses weaknesses found in at least both Digital Signal Processors (DSP) and graphics accelerators. One problem found in both contemporary graphics accelerators and DSP's is the real time calculation of square roots. This must be done by applying both the operations of reciprocal and of reciprocal square root. These may be performed in either order. However, square root, which is essential for calculating distances in many applications take twice as long as either reciprocal or reciprocal square root. This adds complexity to the software support of applications.
There are a variety of performance bottlenecks and complexity hurtles facing contemporary graphics accelerators. These problems are outlined in the “Background of the Invention” of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/470,100, and incorporated herein by reference. They are further discussed in the “Introduction” of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/536,745, and incorporated herein by reference. They are also discussed in the sections “Introduction”, “Datapath Architecture Problems for Compilers”, “Datapath Performance Requirements”, and “An example contemporary shader core datapath” of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/562,493, and incorporated herein by reference.
DSP Processors are discussed and defined with regards FIG. 1A and the associated text in U.S. application Ser. No. 10/276,735, which is incorporated herein by reference. Further, efficient calculation of a number of common functions are not readily available in contemporary Digital Signal Processors, as is disclosed in the “Background of the Invention” of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/226,735, and incorporated herein by reference.
To summarize, there is a commonly experienced problem regarding real-time calculation of square roots in both DSP and graphics accelerators. Each of these areas has a variety of additional problems either in performance, application software support, or both.